


All the Words

by cruisedirector



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Confessions, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Half-truths, Hand Jobs, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nobody is Dead, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Owls, POV Second Person, Romance, Secrets, Sleepy Sex, Spells & Enchantments, Watching Someone Sleep, Werewolves, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-05
Updated: 2005-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it takes a few minutes just to understand the question. And then a few days to understand how you want to answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karelian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karelian/gifts).



> I was talking to childeproof and obeythebunny about characters when it occurred to me that there were vague similarities between my in-denial Snape and another in-denial man I used to write about. I thought that with a number of necessary changes, the scenario in the story below would work for Lupin and Snape; if it sounds familiar, the original version was posted under another name in another fandom. This story was written before DH and is not canon-compliant with anything after OOTP.

Once again, Lupin has fallen asleep on your sofa. It would hardly be fair to blame him for it when you know that his exhaustion stems from a combination of weariness from his transformation and an all-night raid for him and other members of the Order while you feigned solidarity with the Death-Eaters. At times, you and Dumbledore agreed, it might be imprudent for Lupin to return to Grimmauld Place; the house's ownership is now a matter for Ministry experts to work out, since Black died without heirs and his closest cousins have all been legally removed from the right of inheritance.

You haven't minded allowing Lupin to visit nearly so much as you thought you might. Without Potter and Black to goad him, he can be quite civil, intelligent, not at all like the dark creature he becomes at the full moon. When you had finished fetching tea, you were looking forward to discussing invisible potions that would allow a wizard to track a marked object -- very useful in defense against the dark arts -- and you cannot deny a certain irritation when you see that Lupin has dropped off before you've even found time to sit down. He has certainly made himself at home, sprawled over your cushions, flushed and rumpled like an unkempt student.

Given his evident fatigue, you can't send him back to Grimmauld Place in such a state even if you could disregard concerns for his safety. There are blankets on the bed in the room reserved for visiting guests, so letting him stay the night will inconvenience you very little. You won't even need to involve any bothersome house-elves. Besides, you like the idea of him beholden to you, and you're already looking forward to breakfast, when Lupin will turn his appreciative smile on you and then have little choice but to acquiesce when you request his assistance with your potions.

Kneeling, you gaze at the werewolf's face peaceful in sleep. His limp arms drape in front of his chest and his long legs bend at the knees so that his feet can press the armrest. It seems a shame to rouse him even to direct him to a more comfortable bed, but you know the flat cushions provide no real comfort for a long night, and the room will grow chilly once the fire has burned down. Asleep, Lupin looks younger, with the lines on his face smoothed and his prematurely greying hair faded in the dim light. His self-deprecating slouch has never fooled you, though: Lupin can be overbearing and aggressive, posturing and making demands when one would expect a dark creature to avoid drawing attention to himself. Yet sometimes when your eyes meet, there's an odd shyness -- not the disdain that his beloved Black was always so willing to offer.

Carefully you close your hand around his forearm, squeezing. "Lupin," you whisper.

His eyes open and try to focus. There is no hitch the steadiness of his breathing; perhaps he believes that he is still asleep. Yet he smiles encouragingly at you, turning his palm over to press yours. "Severus."

"Come to bed," you say.

Those words wake Lupin fully. He sits up, eyes fixed on yours, and his lips part, making his whole face look as if he wants to ask a question. You think that perhaps he is still stupid from sleep and didn't understand your words. Then he grins a bit, but he's staring as if he doesn't recognize you, studying you very closely as though it is necessary to be certain that you're not secretly a vampire or some other creature which might devour him in his sleep.

It's ludicrous, really, for a werewolf to appear so suspicious, and you redden slightly in resentment. "Are you coming, or would you prefer to spend the night tossing and turning out here?"

At your blush, Lupin's smile explodes across his face, even though he still looks bewildered. "All right," he murmurs in a low, hoarse voice, not a voice you've ever heard him use before. Inexplicably, it gives you chills. That and your reaction to the intensity of his stare make you wonder whether you are as overtired as he is.

When you straighten, Lupin reaches for your hand, and after a moment of confusion you help pull him upright, so that you're nearly nose to nose for a moment as he stumbles to his feet. He lets out a complicit-sounding laugh before you turn to lead him out of the room. Oddly, since it's not completely dark with the fire burning down, he's still holding your hand.

Then, as you pull him around the corner, you realize you what you said to him. What he thinks you were suggesting. Where he thinks you're taking him. What he thinks you want do with him there.

You stop short, all the breath rushing out of you, as if someone has used an Immobilus spell to halt your movement. Lupin bumps into you from behind, laughing again, that same thick throaty buzz that makes you shiver. The goosebumps strike your neck and chest while at the same time you feel perspiration prickling your armpits and groin.

How typical of a werewolf to attribute a lewd meaning to an innocent offer -- this is why you've always thought it best to keep your distance from such a creature, even if he feigns affability when the moon is not full. And does Lupin really think of you as the sort of man who'd simply invite another man to his bed? That is a misconception that you must clear up at once. So you turn.

He's beaming at you. He's delighted with you. Wide awake now, looking as if it's his birthday and you've just confessed that you have presents for him in the other room. That's when it occurs to you that he said _all right_. Before you even got around to figuring out what you'd asked him, he'd already agreed.

You wish your throat weren't so constricted, because you're sure you could set him straight with a few words if only you could breathe properly. "Severus," whispers Lupin, searching your face again, and your disgust must be starting to surface because his smile wavers. "Were you joking?" he asks, as if you would have made such a suggestion even in jest.

Abruptly his fingers tug free from yours. A flicker of sadness twists his mouth and makes him shut his eyes before he opens them again, narrowed, and sets his lips in a forced, menacing grin. "The joke's over."

There's your chance to regain your dignity, even to scoff at his absurd belief that you, the Head of Slytherin House, would stoop so low as to proposition a werewolf, but the moment the warmth has gone from his face and voice, you want it back. You want it back more than your privacy, your reputation or whatever else you thought might be at risk; you want it back more than you want to explain things to him. The depth of the longing shakes you, rising up from a place in yourself you hadn't thought existed, not since you took the Dark Mark at least.

Because you still can't inhale with your usual efficiency, you just shake your head no, which makes you dizzy. You stumble helplessly against the wall, and Lupin sees. He steps closer, reaching out, then checking himself, but your rebellious hand has already encountered his again, and the two of you stand for a few moments staring in the dimness at your interlocked fingers. You think about how he looked earlier in the evening on your sofa when you noticed the splay of his fingers against the cushions, the ripple and stretch of his muscles, the lines fading from around his eyes. You hadn't realized that you were watching so closely.

Evidently you hadn't realized a great many things.

So gradually that you don't even notice the movement, Lupin comes to rest beside you against the wall, his shoulder barely brushing yours -- not crowding you, perhaps under the mistaken impression that you may be panicking. His arm feels solid and warm. Exhaustion strikes you with the same force that depleted him earlier, and you must fight an impulse to lean against him, allowing him to support you for a moment...to lead _you_ to bed and take the weight of decision from you.

"Tired?" he asks quietly. Gratefully you nod, finding that you can meet his eyes when he steps back. "Me too." There's a kind of regret tugging down the corners of his smile but his eyes are warm again, as is his hand, holding your clammy palm against his own. You're breathing more easily now, which is such a relief that you ignore for a moment the color flooding your face and the shameful weakness in your knees. Even without Legilimency you can read his uncertainty, the confused desire and fear of rejection; whatever else he may be thinking, he is not scoffing at you.

Neither of you speaks again until you step forward, keeping your fingers laced with his, to lead him to your bedroom. By the time you're finished putting out the candles and spelling the kettle so that there will be tea as soon as you wake, Lupin is stretched out on his side on your bed, fast asleep. Or at least, if he isn't really sleeping, he's leaving it up to you whether you want to find out.

You lie down beside him, adjusting to the way his weight changes the angle of the mattress. You're wearing more clothing than usual to bed but not so much that you couldn't sleep comfortably. It's strange to be able to feel and smell him so close to you in your own room, though if you are going to be completely honest with yourself, the feeling is quite pleasant even when you try to remind yourself of who and what he is.

In the darkness you think about what he'd thought you wanted -- what he'd thought he had agreed to do. And how happy he'd been. And how foolish you've been. Now that you can breathe, you can let yourself remember his smile, your physical reactions to it not just tonight but for a long time, those chills you couldn't explain but that never happen in anyone else's presence, and you know it's not fear of the wolf that's been constraining you. When you chance a look in his direction at his calm, presumably sleeping face, you feel none of the hatred you harbored while Black was alive. You're uneasy that perhaps someone else might have noticed the change -- it would merely be humiliating if anyone in the Order knew, but it might be deadly if discovered by other associates, for Lupin as well as for yourself.

Despite all the anger you have stored up over the years, you have no wish to hurt him. If you recollect the happiness draining out of his face -- something like how you imagine a man must look facing a Dementor, all his joy sucked away -- your chest tightens again. It's a very unpleasant feeling, much harder to accept than the way you begin to perspire when he stares at you. Now that you know what it means, you're embarrassed that you didn't notice before, concerned that you have such a vulnerability...and filled with hope, that most dangerous of feelings, which triggers foolhardy decisions and sparks so much disappointment.

Across the blanket, Remus lets his arm uncurl toward you. Despite everything you know, you think that it will be all right, and when his fingers weave between your own, you dare to hope that perhaps it will be better than all right.

You fall asleep like that, side by side, hand in hand.


	2. All True

For the first time in you don't remember how long, you wake up warm. It's always cool in the dungeons at Hogwarts, and the rooms haven't been heated properly when you've stayed before at the decaying 12 Grimmauld Place. You have grown accustomed to the cold, just as you have grown accustomed to the faint itching in your arm where the Dark Mark, activated once more, waits to burn again. Yet this very early morning you find yourself comfortable, pressed against another body that has curved itself around yours.

You think Lupin is still asleep, though you had thought that the night before as well, when he stared at you with such wonder and confusion after you uttered what was either a daft double entendre or a transparent declaration of your true wishes. Even now you're not certain whether some part of your mind didn't know how the words would sound, offering them like a test to see what Lupin would say and how you would respond. If inviting him to bed was a test, apparently you both passed, because your mortifying reaction of the night before has given way to ease, contentment at finding him still here and surprising pleasure at his body's unconscious response to you when you shift -- throwing a protective arm over you and pulling you closer.

You're fully awake, perhaps even a little too awake, and you can feel that parts of Lupin are as well, even if his arm rests heavily around you and his breath feels slow and even against your neck. You nudge backward into him, expecting him to wake up more fully and roll away, but he doesn't; he straightens his legs a bit and you're certain for a moment that he is prodding himself into you deliberately to make sure his hardness hadn't escaped your notice. But his arms remain relaxed, and even though his breathing hitches a bit, it falls back quickly into the same slow rhythm. Very few people have ever held you like this -- not when you were a child, not the few sporadic lovers you've had since you joined the faculty of Hogwarts -- and your enjoyment of the sensation is stronger than your unease.

You almost ask Lupin whether he is awake, but if making him acknowledge it may also cause him to pull away, you decide that it isn't worth the inquiry. So you hold still, feeling him surge into you with each breath, his hand against your side just a couple of inches from your cock, which stiffens and strains to rub against his fingers despite your efforts to relax. Eventually you bend a bit more at the waist, his arm slides downward across your hip, and you brush against each other for a moment. Then a longer moment, with his breath stuttering and sighing on the back of your neck, before you feel his lips brush your skin. His fingers close around you almost reflexively, as if he were moving through a dark room and found something solid to hold. You can't help moaning, pressing into his palm, tilting your head to give his lips better access beneath your hair.

Deliberately and firmly, Lupin's hand moves over your pants as he presses himself behind you and begins to rock, not quite thrusting. You try to remember being cradled like this before, during sex or simply out of comfort, and cannot recall a single instance; it moves you, and you very nearly whisper his name, but you fear that if you admit to being awake then he might stop pretending to be asleep and end it lest you should make some pathetic attempt to deny your response. It seems likely that the angle is not ideal for him, and after a minute you hear him whimper faintly -- a tiny sound of frustration. You roll over, flush against him, face against his throat, and when he carefully settles his arms around you, you put yours around him as well.

You want to blame Lupin's skilled hands for how quickly you are overwhelmed. You want to blame Lupin's skilled hands because otherwise you must blame your own feelings -- your urgency, your want. You wish that Lupin would be rougher, giving you an excuse for the desperate noises escaping your throat. You particularly wish that Lupin would be rougher because his hands have not even left your shoulders, your hips, your backside. He is barely touching you, yet you are moments away from surrender.

You bite down on your own lip to stop yourself from speaking, but Lupin pushes your mouth open, licks away the pain and swallows your shudder as you move together, shameless and curious, beyond thought or apology. To your surprise you make him spasm against you first; it doesn't take much, since there's already a damp spot on his pants when you stroke him, and he quivers and bucks silently to maintain the illusion that you are both asleep. But you can feel the wetness spilling over the top of the loose band of his pants onto your skin, and you groan and follow him a minute later.

For a few minutes you remain in his arms, content simply to lie there, and then for a few minutes you feel extremely awkward because obviously you can't continue to pretend to be asleep if you're going to clean up. Eventually Lupin hums softly, reaches for his wand and murmurs charms that leave you less sticky but also less warm. The feeling intensifies when he rises and walks toward the bathroom, leaving you alone atop the covers. When he returns, his skin is cold all over -- you can feel it before you touch him -- and as he slides close to you, you reach down so that you can pull a blanket over both of you. Soon you have fallen back asleep together without exchanging a word to acknowledge that you were ever awake together.

When your eyes crack open in the morning, squinting against the candles enchanted to brighten the room at dawn, Lupin is already partway across the room, fetching tea from your kettle. He smiles when he sees you sitting up and pours for you without needing to be asked. You're not sure precisely what you want to ask him; your imagination will only go so far before your heart starts pounding. It is perhaps proper etiquette to kiss him good morning when he brings your cup, but you can't think about kissing him in the light, with his eyes on yours, without knocking the world off its axis.

Lupin's fingers brush over yours when he hands you the tea and your eyes meet. Then he grins at you, and you're glad the bed is flat and steady beneath you. Perhaps you are hungry; you ate very little supper the evening before. As if he has been using Legilimency, Lupin asks whether you're ready for breakfast yet, and when you glance at his hands and their long, elegant fingers, you imagine him feeding you, with that same combination of paternalistic affection and erotic generosity with which he touched you in bed. You wish you could reach out and take his hand as easily as he keeps clasping his fingers around yours. Then you wish that you could pull him back to bed and have him for breakfast, starting with his fingers, one by one. In your entire life you can't remember ever having had a thought like that.

You're being studied, not unpleasantly, but with that same wariness from the night before when you didn't understand why Lupin might have qualms about sleeping in your rooms. Your face feels hot and you don't know where to put your arms, whether it's safer to cross them or to fold your hands in your lap where they can't cause trouble. "Last night..." he begins. You want to cut him off, but you don't know what you want to tell him, not even when he grins suddenly and says, "I got a little confused."

"Perhaps we both did," you nod, because that is honest, if unrevealing. You're not accustomed to being off-balance like this and cannot prevent some displeasure. It seems like a great deal to take in at once, and although it is difficult not to respond to the warmth in his smile, it is also difficult not to cringe in embarrassment and wish that he would leave you alone to sort things out. "I had not considered..."

But that's a lie and now you know it. You had apparently considered him very closely; you just hadn't confessed to yourself what it might mean. If you lie to him, he'll see right through you, and then he might mock you. When you fail to continue, he speaks again. "You surprised me. It was...a nice surprise." Steam from the tea rises to heat your face, and you are grateful, because color is flooding your cheeks.

Obviously he thinks he needs to walk you through this conversation, but there is only kindness on his face and in the hand he rests on your shoulder, rubbing a pattern you can't identify into your skin. The gesture makes the teacup shake in your hand until hot liquid spills over the brim and drips onto your bed. Lupin's lips part in apology, but before he can speak, you remove his fingers from your shoulder and pull him down to sit beside you. He obeys your gesture and after a moment leans to take the cup from you, setting it on the table by the bed.

"What now?" His words are an open invitation, though his eyes narrow for a moment as he assesses your intentions, but then he gives you that pure, delighted smile that shows all his teeth, and it's a good thing you're sitting down because it tightens your chest and changes your breathing the way it did before. Now you can see clearly that the feeling you wished to evade was not fear, though you are afraid of what might happen if he slips too deeply beneath your defenses, where you have hoarded away secrets darker than those of a werewolf. What the two of you are doing should be unthinkable. That you want to do it anyway makes you wonder how many other deceptions you have tried to keep from coming to light.

In a moment one of you is going to kiss the other, but you have no idea who will get there first because time has stopped operating in its normal minute-to-minute rhythm and hangs suspended, as if the two of you have a Time-Turner's chain wrapped around your bodies while the rest of the world proceeds at its normal pace. Lupin's eyes are wide open, though darkening faintly as your shadow falls over them, like portals to a place you have never imagined that you would visit.

You can't be certain, but you think that you're the one who finally moves across the distance that separates you, tilting your head to keep your nose from colliding with his, pursing your lips because you're not confused this time about what you want and you know how to tell him without any risk of miscommunication. Even though your eyes have fallen shut, you can see that he wants it, too. His lips are warm and firm against yours and then damp and soft around them, bittersweet with tea. After a few moments you pull back just enough to look at him, to establish a clear end to that kiss, so that you'll be able to summon it in memory as a singular, isolated moment. Because you know you're going to kiss him again, and you have no idea when that might stop; it's too far ahead in the unimaginable future, an hourglass flipping and the seconds ticking like your heartbeat.

"We could go back to sleep," says Lupin without a trace of taunting in his voice.

"It's still early," you agree. He lifts his wand and the candles all go out at once. His breath grows ragged in the dark as you hear the sounds of clothing being shed, fabric brushing and settling. When you lie down, wearing far less than you wore to bed the night before, you must concentrate on keeping your own breath steady.

"Asleep yet?" Lupin mumbles after a minute.

"Are you?"

"Mmhmm." You can feel him rolling to face you, then you can feel his smile against your throat, and he is still smiling when he lifts his head to find your mouth. "If you don't mind, I'd like breakfast in bed," he murmurs, and you return it in a puff of unexpected laughter:

"All right."


	3. All the Time

The clock by the bed says that it's still an hour until noon. But you wonder whether the enchantment that keeps it wound has been lifted, because it doesn't seem possible that barely twelve hours have passed since you woke Lupin on your sofa, spoke three careless words to him and turned your life upside down. You might even suspect that you had dreamed the entire thing were Lupin not still in your bed, sleeping soundly despite the approach of midday.

Again you catch yourself smiling -- something of which you are aware only because your face feels so strange with the muscles in your cheeks pulling back involuntarily -- as if someone has charmed your mouth to grin. You've probably smiled more in the past few hours than you did in the previous few months. Or maybe your face feels so strange from the minutes you spent trying to hold in the smile because you thought Lupin might believe you had gone mad, before you realized he was smiling even more widely and was making no attempt to hide it. He kept laughing, too, in that surprised, delighted way, and as he nodded off his voice practically purred with contentment. That is a comfort because you suspect that you were a clumsy oaf. There he was, trying not to rush you, when you attacked him as if you rather than he had an animal within, and you were noisy and greedy and really quite shameless besides.

You suspect that you should be more embarrassed than you are, though you also suspect that Lupin very much enjoyed it. But at the least, you know that you should be more concerned about where this is leading. There is a great deal at stake: your position, the working relationship that the two of you must maintain, possibly even your safety and his. It is disturbing how little these matters worry you for the moment. As soon as Lupin rouses himself from the nap he's taking with his face pressed against your shoulder, you intend to mention the risks and discuss the need for caution. Or, perhaps, you will save the conversation for later and urge him to put his hands on you again, since there will be plenty of time to talk at breakfast...well, dinner, at that point. Or you could wait until tomorrow, when you hope that you will be thinking more clearly instead of reliving the past hours each time you close your eyes.

Another glance at the clock confirms that only minutes have passed. That is not as disconcerting as it was earlier, when you had the feeling of using a time-turner to preserve each second; still, you can't shake the sense that the inner clock which tells you when to sleep, when to rise and when to eat has been altered. Because you have always been an extremely punctual person, this is rather troubling, and you wonder whether it might be related to your thoughtless invitation of the night before. None of this would have happened without those moments of misunderstanding between yourself and Lupin. You might not even have arrived at the idea of it until it was years too late, instead assuming that he disliked you as much as ever. What a waste of time all that anger seems now. How much time did you let slip past because you were so slow to grasp your own wishes? How much time do you have left before you catch up with the destinies that surely wait for each of you?

For the first time since the night before when you realized what Lupin thought you wanted, your head clears. Now you can look further than ten minutes into the future, though you aren't enthusiastic about seeing what lies ahead. On the one hand, this is only the first morning of what might very well be weeks or months of happy revelation. Lupin has known you since childhood; you are already aware of many of his flaws and failings, as he is of yours. There is no need for any awkward period of becoming acquainted with one another's quirks and bad habits. If the two of you have managed to put aside so many years of anger to grasp at pleasure as you did last night, you do not believe that any unexpected discovery will destroy the connection.

On the other hand, you and Lupin are both aging faster than your years. His werewolf metabolism has worn down his body, prematurely graying his hair and putting lines on his face, while the scars from your affiliation with the Dark Lord have damaged yours in ways that are not so easy to see. Your time together might be abbreviated even if your struggles were over, but they are not, and you can see the toll that Lupin's work for the Order takes on him just as you can feel it in yourself each time you return from a session with the Death-Eaters. Time -- which has been in blissful suspension for the past half a day -- is going to become your enemy merely by passing, forcing you to pay for past mistakes, taking him from you whether or not you wish to relinquish...

"Are you all right, Severus?" You feel the words as you hear them, in the warmth of Lupin's breath and the shift of his lips like a kiss against your upper arm.

"Of course I'm all right. I thought you were asleep," you reply shortly.

"I was resting. But you're very tense." Lupin gets up on one elbow to look down at you. "What is it?"

"I just noticed the clock."

"Do you have work that you need to do?"

"Not yet. But I will. We do not have all the time in the world."

The sigh in your voice sounds mawkish, but your declaration makes Lupin grin, and you wonder how long it will take before you stop feeling the world tilt when he smiles at you. Instinctively you reach out and he rolls toward you, so that his side presses along the entire length of yours. His hand moves onto your shoulder, squeezing.

"Then we'll make time." Lupin's voice is warm and steady, like his palm against your skin. "I had no idea you wanted this. I'm still having trouble believing it." He peers at you sideways, the angle making him look shifty. "How long?"

"How _long_?" Because of his expression, your tone sounds suspicious, which gives your words a crude implication. Lupin laughs and slides his arm across your chest, leaning his chin against your collarbone so that his moustache tickles your face and you squirm as you answer truthfully. "I never considered it before last night. I would not have suspected that there was a reason to pursue it." You angle your head to try to meet his eyes. "And you?"

To your surprise, he blushes. The heat on his face seems to travel through your body straight to your groin, and the pressure of his arms around you changes. "I've thought about it on and off since we were in school. I thought you hated me, but I thought about it anyway." You wonder if you knew -- if the shameful part of your mind prone to sentiment and nostalgia, which you ignore lest it should weaken you, had figured it out months ago, and that's why all of this hasn't shocked you into panic or rage. You think, perhaps, that you are gloating, though you also think that if pride played no part in this admission, it might make you more uneasy than it does.

When you tilt your head up to meet his eyes, Lupin leans forward to kiss you, dragging his chest over yours. The kiss does not end when your head falls back, for he follows you down, sliding more fully on top of you and allowing you to feel how much he wants you, again. For a few minutes you lie under him, letting him touch you, familiarizing yourself with the sensation of his weight on you, the stickiness and pressure and warmth and itch and places where he's bumpy and scratchy and smooth. You imagine the transformation that will turn the prickly sparse hair on his body into fur and twist those gentle fingers into claws, but the notion seems abstract -- nothing that makes you wish to escape from him now.

As you push up against him, urging him onto his side so you can get your hands on him, he rolls obediently and moans softly. You decide that words are unnecessary while there are other ways to use your mouth to communicate with him, more quickly, so much more directly, with no possibility that he might misunderstand.

Afterward, when you're lying quietly, thinking that you can spare perhaps five more minutes before you need to clean and prepare yourself for work -- no more delays, no matter what you might wish -- you are still disturbed by the realization of how easily it could have become too late. How it will be too late, one day not far in the future, when one of you fails to return from a raid or a meeting with Death Eaters, or perhaps merely when the lies and deceptions that have become so vital to you both in protecting yourselves create a barrier that you dare not breach. You believe something like that happened between Lupin and Black, so many years ago when you all knew there was a spy within the Order and not even you could give the name.

You turn so that you are looking into Lupin's eyes, and when he grins lazily, you feel time stretching out again. You're aware of every heartbeat, the slow constraint on your breathing and movement. It is still a strange sensation, outside your control, and you wonder whether you will have learned to master it before it becomes a burden you can no longer risk.

"What is it?" he asks. You take a deep breath, then let it out without replying. His hand flutters on your arm; he leans in to press his forehead against yours, so that although he hasn't broken eye contact with you, he's so close that his face is blurred. "Do you need to slow down?" he asks.

"No. Don't slow down. Neither of us can know how much time he has left."

"We won't run out of time," he promises, looking at you like he's trying to understand what is troubling you. He should know, you think: you saw what he was like after Black fell, you know that he understands loss and regret, and you wonder that he sounds so certain. "But I don't want to rush things, either, and you're already watching the clock."

It feels selfish to want to stay in this moment, with Lupin draped over you, rubbing his nose against your cheek, but you think that if this is what he wants -- to take his time, and to take yours -- you will have to learn to accept that. You want to learn to accept that, because you suspect that there will be plenty of time for regret later.

"We could take a bath," he murmurs wickedly, making you smile again like a helpless fool. The rest of your body responds so quickly that you wonder if he has used some whispered spell to reverse the effects of aging and make you feel young.

You know what will happen if you attempt to share the tub with him, and you doubt that you should postpone even further the work that must be finished. But Lupin laughs, unburdened by the clock, and you realize as you hear the delight in his voice that you will make certain you have all the time you need, even if you must turn time back on itself to do so.


	4. All at Once

A single night should not change patterns into which you settled years ago, and at first you convince yourself that it has not. If you ask Filch to supervise your House before dinner because you have business in Hogsmeade, if you impulsively contact Grimmauld Place to ask about security, it hardly counts as significant diversion. Nor is it so very strange for you to ask Lupin's help with the potion you never had a chance to discuss with him that evening, and it is only reasonable that you may have to meet regularly, given the suspicious movements among the Death-eaters. If your attentions have shifted, you believe it must be a cumulative effect of all the developments in the magical world.

When the headmaster stops by your office to let you know that your presence is required for a meeting, in seemingly innocuous words that only a member of the Order would understand, he pauses curiously as he passes your owl. A proud fierce bird, she has always preferred solitude even in the owlery, but she is tolerant of Lupin's spotted brown owl and you have heard the two hooting softly to one another. Now they sit side by side on a perch, and you suspect that Dumbledore recognizes the visitor. Before you can offer an explanation, he speaks: "How much calmer she seems than I had remembered. Yet still watchful." Lest you should give away any feelings that you do not wish to share, you choose not to disagree. Then, as he steps through the doorway to the corridor that will take him above, you realize that in trying to formulate a denial in your mind, you have admitted the possibility of an affirmation.

There has never been a precise moment at which you could say that you had fallen for someone. When you were much younger, by the time it occurred to you to worry that you might be doing it, you'd already slid so far down that there was no way to stop. You found yourself hurtling toward disaster every time, tumbling along a path of destruction that robbed you of dignity, self-respect and control. So you learned not to allow it to happen. Each time anyone got close to you for more than the briefest of liaisons, you broke off contact and regained your balance. Perhaps, over time, you grew too confident in your ability to hold yourself in check. If you'd managed not to end up in love, you reasoned, then you must never have started to fall.

But this time you feel as if you are riding a broom through a thunderstorm, unable to see the ground beneath you, flying much too fast, chilled to the bone, afraid even to stop because you have no idea where you can land safely. The electricity gathering around you makes your hair stand on end. You might find it just a bit exhilarating if you didn't expect it to be the cause of your demise. What's worse is that you have the sense of being in a stadium, with a crowd of people looking at you. It's what you loved and hated about Quidditch: the thrill of flying coupled with the terror that hundreds might see you fail.

When you arrive for the meeting, the only thing that keeps you from flight is the hand that brushes carelessly against your back as you approach the doorway. It reminds you that the ground is just beneath your feet, and moreover it reminds you how absurd would be to wish that the owner of the hand would lace his fingers between yours, which would bring about the very thing you want most to avoid. Everyone would see, everyone would know...including him.

"Ah, Professor Snape. You've brought Lupin with you." The headmaster greets you with a smile and you evade his eyes, cursing yourself, thinking: _Yes, he knows_. But that is unlikely. As you recall very well, not even Albus Dumbledore can penetrate your Occlumency. You do not believe that he can read Lupin's mind, either, or he would have known that Black was an animagus when the Dementors were looking for him. So your secret is safe -- not that it should be considered a secret -- not that it should matter enough to be a secret.

Molly Weasley gives you a curt greeting and offers a bright smile to Lupin, who answers her warmly. Like Lupin until so recently, they may simply accept that things are as they have been, unless you do something to give yourself away. They may not even notice that you're walking cautiously to compensate for the way the world has tilted since you last stepped into a room with the other members of the Order. The Weasley twins are present -- having left school, they have absurdly been deemed old enough to be members by most of the others, even though their failure to complete their educations and their puerile senses of humor make them a danger to everyone.

Sure enough, Fred bursts in and says, "Oh, Professor Snape, Tonks has a question for you about tracking potions. She's been looking everywhere for you, begging us to tell her if we saw you. If she wasn't an Auror, I'd think she fancied you." You practically stumble over your feet. Molly chuckles, scandalized, and swats at her son. Lupin winks at you. You're still scarlet by the time you reach the dining room, but at least now you have an excuse for it.

At the meeting you listen to three of the younger generation of Weasleys argue exuberantly with their parents, McGonagall and Jones about a plan to spy upon potential young Death-Eater recruits, recent Hogwarts graduates from your own House. Their arrogance infuriates you, and the only reason you hold your tongue is because they happen to be right that the Dark Lord is seeking new allies. "Will you join us, Lupin?" George asks, but Lupin says that he would look far more suspicious at a gathering of young people, and you concur. Fred protests, disappointed, that the two of you are acting like old sods, perhaps expecting to provoke Lupin into distancing himself from you; so when Lupin agrees that yes, perhaps the two of you are old sods, George grumbles that then perhaps the two of you should date. With a roll of his eyes, Lupin tilts his head, pretending to ponder this suggestion, while Molly gasps again and threatens her son with dismissal from the table. You notice the headmaster's eyes drifting from Lupin to yourself and put on your darkest contemptuous glower.

Yet as far as you can tell, not a single one of the others appears to notice, which you can't understand because everything looks so different to you that you think it must show on your face. The teacup that you would never have looked at twice a week ago is now _his_ teacup, that's _his_ quill, that's _his_ chocolate. If you find yourself staring strangely, the others think you're just preoccupied with some Order business that you cannot discuss, or perhaps with ongoing alarm at having a werewolf in such close proximity; if you find yourself beaming stupidly, they believe you to be gloating about some Death-Eater secret which perhaps should worry them.

Lupin doesn't behave any differently -- asking you questions, encouraging the younger members to offer suggestions, competing with Arthur for the last piece of pie. When he laughs, you are helpless to hold back any reaction, but you soon realize that the others believe you are grimacing as a sign of dislike rather than trying to stop yourself from responding differently. You try to concentrate on little things like not spilling your tea, not fidgeting with your quill...not giving yourself away. To them. Or to him.

Because even as the cautious, careful part of you is lamenting that it had to be him of all men -- a Gryffindor, a werewolf, Sirius Black's onetime lover, your adversary of so many years -- you also notice that you're not seeing any change in him. Maybe you're looking too hard, too close to be objective, or maybe it's just that he's as well-protected as you are, an Occlumens accustomed to preventing others from learning his secrets and a person who has found it equally necessary to guard himself from those who might get too close. Is the world not as changed for him as it is for you? Or was he so much further along the curve than you were in the first place that by the time you were close enough to see what he really wanted, you had grown familiar with what he looked like in mid-fall?

You believe it is possible that, sometime in the past few days, you've hurtled beyond him.

This would not have happened to you a few years ago; you wouldn't even have entertained the possibility, which makes it quite disturbing that you have allowed it to happen now, when so much more is at stake for everyone. You wonder what other weaknesses you have developed, distracting you, leaving you vulnerable and by extension putting all the others at risk. For a moment you feel a deep spike of distrust, but when you look at Lupin and he offers you the tiniest of smiles, you find that you simply cannot sustain it. Or you will not. And in truth, at that moment, you feel stronger, not vulnerable; you tell yourself that you will destroy anything that threatens this. Him.

By the end of the meeting, you've gone from one extreme to another, from fearing that everyone will guess to wondering why they haven't. It might just be that you and Lupin have always been so distant that your refusal to meet his eyes makes perfect sense to them. If nobody sees, does that make it less real? How real is it to him? If you hadn't been overwhelmed by this, would the two of you ever become friends in the easy way that Tonks and Shacklebolt are friends?

_Stay in the kitchen when the others leave._ The small note which has appeared in a corner of your parchment startles you, sending a thrill through your body, as if Lupin had whispered the words in your ear and let you feel his warm breath against your skin. You nod fractionally, watching him respond to your reaction, smiling at you for the barest fraction of a minute before his head turns away.

It seems as though the others will never leave, and when they finally do, you almost don't make it upstairs because you want so much -- you want affirmation, you want him to need it as badly as you do, you want it right away. If you thought you could pace yourself, you would try, because you haven't forgotten what Lupin said about not wanting to miss anything, but it's so new and intense that you don't know how to stop rushing and he doesn't try to slow you down. You expect to be scolded afterward but he seems worried about you instead, as if your desperation might disguise some other need that you won't name.

"There may not be time for everything," you try to explain. Your world could turn upside down again at the next gathering of Death-eaters or the next day if someone was observing you more closely than you guessed. At first Lupin smiles and assures you in a husky tone that if he's forced to wait for pleasure like you've just shared, it will be worthwhile in the end, but his smile fades as he comes to understand that you're not speaking only of the physical pull between you. Again you see that expression of astonishment cross his face as it did the first night, when neither of you dared believe that anything between you could be so sudden and simple.

And you were right -- it isn't simple -- though you can name the moment this time, the instant in your hallway when you could have stepped back yet did not. You've been falling since that moment, falling hard, and the dangers are as great as they have ever been. But his fingers lace through yours, and as he tugs you closer you can feel the movement shift, so that even as you're falling he's pulling you upward, reaching toward a moment just ahead when you'll come flying back up again and soar. You've never been there before and you had never truly believed that it existed, the place where the world would right itself not for you alone but for you both. Now here it is, just waiting for you to grasp it.


	5. All the Same

The stars look different tonight, wan and pale; many of them are hidden, overwhelmed by the light of the full moon. You haven't made much time in your life for stargazing, though at one time it interested you...or perhaps it was only the Astronomy Tower itself and its secrets that interested you. You'd known since your first year at Hogwarts that older students crept together to the tower during hours when it was supposed to be locked, always in pairs, always boys with girls. There wasn't ever a girl you wanted to take to look at the stars, not even when you believed that looking at the stars was all that happened up there, but there were people you had thought about being alone with up near the heavens.

Tonight everything feels upside-down, as if you were in the southern hemisphere with a view of a sky so foreign that you might almost be on another planet. When you were a child, before you knew you were a wizard, you wondered why the people on the bottom half of the world didn't fall off and believed that magic must have had something to do with it. Finding out about gravity never really changed your conviction, because gravity seemed like a kind of magic, and it could stop working -- what if the Earth turned too slowly one day and everything started to unravel?

Right now it wouldn't be too hard to believe that the Earth's rotation had slowed. This night seems endless and you feel stretched thin, as if the moon is pulling on you more strongly than usual. Standing in your room, wrapped in a blanket that smells like Remus' hair, you look at the stars through the magical portal that lets you see the sky even when you're in the dungeon. You think about what you would wish for if one of them fell. But that's Muggle superstition, and such wishes have a way of backfiring. If you longed never to suffer alone again at the full moon, you'd probably find yourself suffering with someone, in another, more terrible form. And if you wished that _he_ might not ever undergo his brutal transformation again, you might find before the month was out that you had unwittingly wished him dead.

So you hold back on wishing. The things that are good in your life right now came to you without conscious hope, unsought, and they're more than you ever expected to deserve, though still less than you might admit to dreaming. What's difficult to bear is the knowledge that you could lose everything at any moment...and that every moment spared only brings you one moment closer to the inevitable. Maybe, if you were granted a wish, you should ask simply to remember the feeling of joy when you face the coming darkness. Dumbledore speaks of love as perpetual, always in the present tense...

There's that word, slipping so easily into your thoughts that it terrifies you, and you pull the blanket more tightly around yourself. It seems absurd for a word that's neither a spell nor a curse to hold such power over you. Yet you could not bring yourself to say it before the full moon and now your thoughts are preoccupied by the possibility that perhaps you should have seized the opportunity. You never know when it may become too late.

The conversation had been whimsical, Lupin's head rolling against your chest when he twisted to look at you, grinning the grin that always makes the room drop away as if you're touching a Portkey. Your fingers had glided along his abdomen, teasing until he had shivered and twitched, and in response you had said, "I think I like that."

"If you like that, you should see what _this_ does," he had replied, moving your hand lower, and after a few minutes of making him moan while he writhed in pleasure, panting, "Do you like _that_?", you had nodded.

"Yes, I do. I think I love that."

"I think I l..." You heard what he was about to say before he said it, and Lupin must have mistaken the shock on your face for disgust because he didn't finish the sentence. Holding his gaze, you lifted your head, waiting, but all the doubts that you thought were yours alone had crowded between the two of you, and it was he who broke eye contact to say something equally honest, "...I'm sorry."

_Say it anyway_, you had wanted to ask him, but he might have said _you first_, and you couldn't speak at all when you weren't sure that you could trust your own tongue. His hands and his eyes had been fixed on you so firmly that even though you still had the sense of being in motion, flying to an unknown destination, being so close to him made it easier to look into the future, to commit to wherever you were headed: "Tomorrow?"

And he had smiled, "All right," and it had been, because neither of you had been thinking of the clock, the calendar -- neither of you had remembered that tomorrow, which is now today, would end so abruptly with moonrise. It should have been strange to touch him, knowing how much his body would change -- that form to which you have allowed yourself to become so attached. What if he ceased to exist in that form? What if some dark magic trapped him forever as the wolf? What would you call your feelings then?

You swallow back regret at your selfishness, thinking of your own body, which you doubt anyone would describe as desirable. You've always been hopeless at sex, it's too overwhelming, whether it's with a near-stranger or someone you've allowed to get close for a brief time (always brief, there has never been anyone you could afford to trust more than that). The experience has always been equal parts discomfort and unease to pleasure, and in the moment you've often felt embarrassed instead of excited. Still, you've always suspected that it could have been better if you tried it with the right person, and you were determined to impress Lupin even if you didn't end up any more satisfied than before.

You might have known that he wouldn't have let you rush, getting yourself so tense trying to hold back your responses that he said _let's not do this now because your whole body's saying you don't really want to_. Then you unwound a little, telling him that it was all right even when it smarted...and again a few minutes later when it really was all right, then better than all right, and then so much better that you cried and shouted and couldn't have cared less. You've no idea what you said, then, but you wonder if what _he_ said -- mostly "Oh God" and "Yes" -- were substitute words, things that are safe to blurt out in bed to make sure one doesn't blurt out other things.

There's the pole star, the Plough in the northern sky, and that bright reddish point must be Mars. The bringer of war and upheaval will have moved slightly in relation to the other stars by tomorrow, when the moon is no longer full and you can see Lupin again. Still wrapped in the blanket, you sleep and dream of wolves and wishes.

In the morning there are students to be silenced and parchments to be marked with emphatic red underlines, so it is evening again before you can escape from your responsibilities. Lupin looks pale and tired, and though he seems gratifyingly pleased to see you, you find it difficult to talk to him like this. There are too many memories connected to the memory of the man in the form of a wolf, too many subjects you dare not discuss, though so much of that unpleasant history has faded like starlight at dawn since you and he have been together. When you have both finished your tea, you get up to put the cups away even though you might have used magic to do so, and he finds you at the window, looking out at the night sky.

"Are you all right?" he asks softly, his hoarse voice making you feel an inexplicable mix of arousal and shame. Stepping close behind you, he rests his chin on your shoulder, pressing his unshaven cheek against your face. It feels scratchy and solid, much more real than all the nebulous doubts that have been plaguing you.

"I was looking at the stars," you tell him.

The hands that have been creeping around your sides falter. "I've never known you to stargaze, Severus." In your preoccupation, you didn't notice how cool the night air had become, and you repress a shiver as he steps back. "Did you want to be alone?"

"It was a momentary distraction." Turning to look at him, you find yourself surprised by the uncertainty in his expression. "Are you cold? I was thinking that that fire should be built up."

"I was thinking that you might be more comfortable elsewhere." Lupin's eyes are warm but sad. "I realize that I'm very poor company tonight. If you'd like to go..."

Somehow you have conveyed the opposite intention to your desire, which is to sleep through the night with the heat of his body keeping you warm. "I'd like to stay. Unless you aren't feeling up to having a guest."

His warm hand closes over yours. "You aren't a guest," he insists, his grin sending a wave of heat over you. "You're my lover, and I want you here. But I also don't want you to feel uncomfortable..."

"Come to bed," you interrupt, three words that have never lost power between you since that night when you spoke them in what you thought was innocence. In bed, everything is easier; the two of you communicate without words with far greater skill than you have ever had in conversation, and you don't mind nearly so much when it seems that Lupin can read your mind. He takes you to his room, yet as you watch him undress, you find yourself nervous again -- you don't know whether you can hold him without your body responding and you don't know whether you can touch him without hurting him.

When Lupin's eyes meet yours across the bed, he looks sad again. "Something's bothering you," he observes. "Is it too soon after the full moon?"

"I might ask you the same thing." He frowns slightly before comprehension lights his expression, and then he smiles broadly.

"I won't break, Severus. I'm tired and stiff, not fragile." As he speaks, Lupin turns down the covers, sliding beneath them with a gesture that indicates his wish for you to join him.

You are only too happy to concede, accepting all the warmth from his blankets, his body, his smile. As you move -- slowly, so as not to hurt him -- into his arms, you raise your wand to snuff the candles and catch a glimpse of the clock. "It's a quarter till tomorrow."

For a moment Lupin looks puzzled. Then he gives you the smile that can stop the world from rotating, though his eyes look a little shy. "Let's not wait till morning," he replies, and he's kissing you, sliding you flat against the mattress. You think of the stars, as unchanging from last night to tonight as they were a hundred years ago, and suddenly you cannot remember why you ever felt compelled to rush. You ask him a few times whether he's all right, but from his gasps and moans of encouragement, you come to the conclusion that he is, indeed, not fragile, and being with him now is such a strange blend of familiar and foreign that it soon takes all your concentration just to keep from losing your grip, falling over the edge.

Lupin catches you when gravity stops working, as you had always known it might, and when it starts again you tell him about the night before, the stars and thinking about wishes, even though such words are so difficult for you. The other words are already present, hovering between the two of you.

Although you haven't stopped falling since that first night, you finally believe that this is necessary to change your sense of how fast the world spins, so that there will be time for everything...the next day, the next year, or during some unimaginable span ahead. And if the worst happens, if you do lose everything you have loved, the memory will stay with you all the same.


End file.
